Life as an anti-abortion activist: What 'The Helpers of God's Precious Infants' believe

Warning: this article discusses rape. If you or someone you know needs help, support is available from 1800 RESPECT or Lifeline on 13 11 14.

In the small New South Wales border town of Albury, there’s a spiritual war underway.

It’s being fought by ‘The Helpers of God’s Precious Infants’ - a group of anti-abortion protesters who gather outside the town’s clinic. They say it’s a battle between good and evil. They say they pray for the dying and offer help to the living.

Not everyone sees it that way - critics say the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants harass women at a time that’s hard enough, that they invade women’s medical privacy. They want them banned from outside clinics.

How Do You Sleep At Night? is a new podcast about people who face judgement for the things they do or the beliefs they hold. As part of this series, I spent time with the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants. I wanted to know why they keep picketing at clinics, despite that the majority of Australians agree that women should have the right to choose. Following is what I learned about the controversial group.

“We’re losing the battle but we’ll win the war”

The Helpers of God’s Precious Infants have their roots in America - the group was founded in 1989 in New York. In Australia, they’ve been banned from protesting out the front of clinics in Victoria and Tasmania. But New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia still don’t have exclusion zones. A recent bill tabled by Greens MP Dr Mehreen Faruqi to remove abortion from the criminal code and create 150m exclusion zones around abortion clinics was struck down in May. The Helpers of God’s Precious Infants have the ears of senior government ministers and describe their meetings as “positive”.

But their fight’s not over. In August, a separate Greens motion supporting a woman’s right to choose safe, legal abortions passed unanimously through the New South Wales lower house. And Labor MP Penny Sharpe has drafted legislation which would deal specifically with creating exclusion zones - a move some experts say gives it a better chance of success than the Faruqi bill. It is currently before the parliament but there is no date yet scheduled for a vote.

Paul Hanrahan

“We’re getting belted big time”

Paul Hanrahan is a 60 year-old father of five and the Sydney coordinator of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants. He’s been praying out the front of abortion clinics for 23 years.

Three days a week, he carts his A-frame signs onto the street out the front of the clinic. They have pictures of bloodied fetuses on them. One says “abortion hurts women”. On the other side, there are stock images of happy families frollicking with young children.

The Helpers of God’s Precious Infants opposition to abortion is absolute. They believe there are no acceptable circumstances for a woman to choose that path. For them, abortion is the equivalent of taking the life of a child or an adult.

“What’s the difference between a 10 year old and a 3 month old baby in the womb besides the obvious age difference?,” Hanrahan asks.

“What is the difference?”

“The unborn child is a unique individual never to be repeated”

Dr Philippa Ramsay is an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. She says the assumption by some of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants that women don’t understand abortion is often wrong.

Women aren’t stupid. They can Google… they know what they’re doing. They still want a termination.

“About a fifth or a quarter of all pregnancies in Australia are terminated electively. So there’s a big cohort of women who seriously want a termination of pregnancy and the avenues to get one easy everywhere.”

Lawsuit creates tensions in Albury

In Albury, the battle is not just spiritual and political, it’s also legal.

An ongoing dispute between a prominent pro-choice doctor Pieter Mourik and a prominent pro-life doctor Roland Von Marburg and his wife Anna was settled out of court recently, after comments were posted about Dr Von Marburg on a pro-choice Facebook page. The Von Marburgs sued and Mourik was made to apologise and pay an undisclosed amount of money as part of the settlement. The lawsuit has created further tension in the town - people on both sides are hesitant to talk on the record about the issue, for fear of reprisals.

Liz Marmo

Both sides accuse the other of bad behaviour.

On the pro-choice side is Liz Marmo. She goes to the clinic every Thursday to watch the protesters and take photos of them for her Facebook page We Need A Bigot Exclusion Zone Right Here Right Now.

“I’ve seen all sorts of really unacceptable behaviour,” she says.

“Going to cars, noticing cars being parked away from the clinic. They seem to have a radar where they know that’s a possible patient. They will go down, if the security guard’s not quick enough.”

“I’ve just seen so much. I’ve seen women break down and just be so shattered.”

Emily Howie is the director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre. She worked on the Victorian push to have exclusion zones introduced. She now wants New South Wales to follow suit.

“Women accessing these clinics are not asking for counselling from the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants.

“Their experience of them is quite different to the way the Helpers describe it. Women describe being jostled, interfered with, told not to kill their baby and frequently arrive at clinics teary and distressed by what they’ve been through.

“One thing the Helpers don’t seem to understand is that they do have a right to free speech, they do have a right to their opinions, but they don’t have the right to a captive audience for those opinions.”

We see the truck drive in the back and drives out and on the side it’s got medical waste. And they’re babies. They’re babies.”

Two years ago, an elderly Helper was praying out the front of the Albury abortion clinic when he was attacked by the angry partner of a woman using the service. Greg Cummins was knocked to the ground and his jaw was broken.

“He just went bang and he broke my jaw, knocked me back. I hit a fence - my back hit below my shoulders up against the brick fence. Lucky I didn’t hit my head on the fence because I could have been killed,” he said.

Despite being hospitalised, Mr Cummins continues to pray out the front of the clinic.

“There’s no way I’m going to be put off by someone like that… Why would you not come back? That’s a thing we believe in and you’ve just got to put up with it. That’s one of the risks you take I suppose.”

He describes women who choose to have an abortion as “greedy”, motivated by “selfishness”.

Q: Do you think your views are the minority views?A: Yeah no doubt we’re the minority views.Q: How do you think people see you?A: Quite mad, quite mad and they don’t really want to associate with you

When I asked Greg’s wife Mary about her experience at the clinic she started to cry.

“We see the truck drive in the back and drives out and on the side it’s got medical waste. And they’re babies. They’re babies.

“It did really shake me up the first time I saw that truck. It really did. It brought tears to my ears and I’ve got tears in my eyes now, thinking about that.”

Dr Philippa Ramsay says the Helper’s of God’s Precious Infants are trying to push a specific view of development onto women who are choosing abortions.

“People are trying to make baby features on a fetus and that’s fine for people who want their pregnancy and are committed to it and who want to get swept away by the whole romanticism of it - that’s lovely. But it’s completely different for people who don’t want to continue with the pregnancy.

“And it’s a little bit unfair I think using someone else’s version of it, or someone else’s religious belief or someone else’s captivation with… pregnancy. I think what their brochures try to do is lay it on someone who seriously doesn’t want this pregnancy and that’s why it’s unfair.”

I know it is a fight or a battle between good and evil because this is about life and death… so that’s why I expect the worst to happen.”

Regina

Regina is a mother of six from Albury and regular among the Helpers who picket the town’s clinic. She says she’s been personally targeted out the front of the clinic too.

“I’ve had the sprinkler put on me, and the hose outside the clinic…. I’ve had verbal abuse… I’ve been spat at by a male whose partner was going inside. I’ve had things thrown from driving cars…. I’ve had a letterbox drop to my home with a flyer with a photo of me outside the clinic as a threat. I’ve had a flyer sent to my husband’s employer with a letter attached.”

Like Greg, Regina says she isn’t motivated by other people’s approval and will continue to pray out the front of the clinic while it is legal to do so. She rejects claims the Helpers harass women.

“For anyone that has a strong belief in abortion… I really think they’re blinded to the truth. That’s why we can’t judge. It’s not our duty to judge.

“I just have a lot of compassion - believe it or not - for abortionists themselves.”

When I ask her views on contraception, she declines to comment. Paul Hanrahan is more forthcoming. He says the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants believe that contraception is “always wrong”.

“Contraception contravenes the moral law… Someone using artificial contraception or someone using withdrawal or some other method of avoiding pregnancy is deliberately thwarting the natural end of that act. That’s why it's wrong.”

Q: Even pulling out is wrong Paul?

A: Yes, it is.

Hanrahan explains that if you are an adult wanting to be sexually active, it is only permissible within a married heterosexual relationship. There are no exceptions.

A few years ago, Anisa had an abortion at the Albury clinic. She had recently been raped and when she fell pregnant with her fiance, she says she knew she couldn’t keep the baby.

“I couldn’t look after myself at the time,” she remembers.

“It was a struggle to get out of bed, a struggle to sleep properly at night. I was using alcohol as a way to cope with the trauma of the rape. And it was only the option at the time. I’d talked about it a lot with my fiance and we were before the rape trying for kids which made it all that more awful.

She says she doesn’t regret her decision to have an abortion but is still dealing with the impact her interactions with the Helpers had on her.

“It’s not the fact that I had an abortion that I’m stressed about or worried about. It’s the fact that I made that decision for myself. Nobody else knew my story, yet I was still told that I would go to hell and burn in hell by the protesters out the front.”

Anisa says despite what she’s been through, she doesn’t hate the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants.

I don’t hate them, I just hate what they do.

“Good on them for sticking up for their beliefs, but just do it somewhere else, where it’s not hurting people,” she says.

When I recount Anisa’s story to Paul Hanrahan from the Sydney branch of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, he says he doesn’t believe those things were said to her - that women hear what they want to when they walk past the people praying.